The best of Tony Romo from the broadcast booth: From predicting plays to calling a cat on the field

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Tony Romo and Jim Nantz are seen in the broadcast boothnbefore an NFL football game between the Green Bay Packers and the Cincinnati Bengals Sunday, Sept. 24, 2017, in Green Bay, Wis. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)

Tony Romo's move from Dallas Cowboys quarterback to No. 1 analyst for CBS had its fair share of doubters before the season began. Most of that doubt has been erased (cough, Brent Musberger) as Romo's first season in the booth has progressed.

If Tony Romo the NFL analyst is indeed a work in progress, as CBS Sports boss Sean McManus likes to say, the former Cowboys quarterback someday just may be worthy of mention in the same sentence as John Madden.

Is Tony Romo the next John Madden? This just scored him big points during Bengals-Packers game Sunday

Admittedly, I thought Colleyville's Lance Barrow, CBS' lead golf producer and former lead NFL producer, was delusional when he mentioned Romo and Madden in the same breath at a Colonial event back in May. But Barrow, who once worked at CBS with Madden, may have been on to something.

After regional broadcasts the first two weeks of the season, Romo made his national debut alongside Jim Nantz at Sunday's Cincinnati Bengals-Green Bay Packers game.

Romo now has a "boffo" hat trick.

To a bag of tricks that included predicting plays as well as Maddenesque "booms," he added Chris Berman-like "whoops" to his repertoire. He broke them out three times on a second quarter run by Bengals running back Giovani Bernard and then he sheepishly confessed, "I don't even know what it means."

That isn't the only time that speculation has flown about Romo ditching the booth to return to football. It happened again when Packers QB Aaron Rodgers broke his collar bone.

Comeback? Tony Romo is playing mind games, not NFL games

SportsDay's Barry Horn said Romo's lack of directly saying he wouldn't come back meant it was "time to declare Tony Romo one of the greatest public relations people in the history of PR-dom." From Horn:

All Romo would have to do to dispel the notion of a comeback is tweet three words: "Not leaving CBS."

Has he? Nope.

In fact, his last football-related tweet came Oct. 11, several days after a rare Sunday off from talking football with Jim Nantz on CBS' top NFL broadcast. He was home with his sons.

Romo, complete with video of his two sons, tweeted: "Sunday was a good day to hang out and watch football with the boys. Rivers [son No. 2] is the 'crazy guy' Hawk [son No. 1] is talking about. Riiiiiiiight"

Sunday was a good day to hang out and watch football with the boys. Rivers is the “crazy guy” Hawk is talking about. Riiiiiiiight pic.twitter.com/4lTMBjmoWO

Dumb and Dumber

Pittsburgh receiver Antonio Brown caught an insane pass off Chiefs DB Phillip Gaines' face that looked like it was going to be picked off. Brown instead snatched the ball and booked it to the end zone for a touchdown.

"Oh and it's caught! No way!" Romo shouted as Brown ran. "In for the touchdown, off the ricochet."